Seasquirt

Archive for Australia

We’re in Sydney Airport. It’s very like many other airports, but has some free internet facilities if you look in obscure corners. It’s not very sunny here, but we had a nice fly over town on the way in.

November 30, 2007 at 8:03 pm · Written by Chris · Filed under Australia

We’re leaving Australia tomorrow and are sad to do so. We’ve had a lovely time and have enjoyed lots of wonderful beasties and birds, friendly people, fine weather and dramatic landscapes. All very excellent indeed!

Now, whilst signage is excellent, humorous and even slightly risque (in a way that would not be acceptable in Britain), grammar and spelling are poor. In Australia apostrophes are frequently misused, and little proof reading is evident in signs and menus. This upsets my good lady’s sensibilities greatly.

Mr Rudd, the newly elected Prime Minister, may wish to address this problem!

Australians are exceptional at Surf Lifesaving though - we watched a competition on Bondi Beach this afternoon and they excelled.

We’re in Sydney. It rained today so we went to the Maritime museum. A replica of Cook’s Endeavour is here and a diesel-electric submarine too. The Harbour Bridge is nice, but not a patch on our bridge (above). The Opera house is a little more yellow than I thought, but nice all the same.

Over the last few days we have been visiting Melbourne, and were kindly taken in by Ameera - a doctor from OpWall. We actually kicked her out of her lovely new house, which was very kind of her!

Melbourne was very bad for our waistlines (well mine, Chris is skinny as ever) as we managed to wander from cafe to chocolate shop whilst trying to avoid the rain - all very European and yummy. Ameera took us for a tour of the Dandenong Ranges just outside the city where we managed to see some Lyrebirds, and devour more tasty food.

After a couple of days in the city we headed along the Great Ocean Road (after renting a car in the city and managing to avoid scary hook turns where you stay in a left lane to turn right!). The coastal views were as amazing as promised - lots of big waves and funky limestone geology.

We stayed in a lovely little place called Port Fairy and went for a night time stroll to a small island where Short-tailed Shearwaters flew overhead and occasionally squawked at us.

I continued in my mammal spotting and saw lots of Koalas hanging out in trees - some were having cuddles - all very cute. I did get scared when one of them started making weird noises from the ground behind me - wasn’t sure if koalas were prone to viciously attacking humans (yes, I’m a wuss).

We are now enjoying the sights of Sydney - it’s so big! Blue Mountains tomorrow though…

November 27, 2007 at 9:55 pm · Written by Chris · Filed under Australia, People

We enjoyed a lovely few days in Melbourne. The very busy and cosmpolitan nature of the city was a little of a culture shock for us - Hobart and Alice Springs aren’t quite so hectic.

Amongst all the really very fashionable people we noticed a curious trend - young men with moustaches. Really very innapropriate. Over a beer in a roof-top bar, rather like a scene from Alice in Wonderland, we inquired of our host, Ameera, the nature of this fashion.

It transpires it is the month of Movember, where men grow moustaches to raise awareness of male health issues. So they are trendy after all.

November 27, 2007 at 9:52 pm · Written by Fiona · Filed under Australia, Food

Whilst in the supermarket, we decided to treat ourselves to a beer (to take away that is!). I headed for the off licence and perused the fridge section which only seemed to contain alcopops and premixed spirits. I obviously looked a bit lost and bemused as a shop assistant asked if he could help - I asked him if they had a fridge with beers - he pointed me through a door. Much to my amusement, this turned out to be a huge freezer room with crates of beer as far as the eye could see! I managed to select a couple of nice sounding bottles (which were nice). And had to send Chris to experience the way Ozzies do beer!

November 22, 2007 at 12:01 am · Written by Fiona · Filed under Australia, Animals

Whilst in Tasmania we were very keen to see a Platypus, as this was supposed to be one of the best places to spot them. Therefore every stretch of water we saw was examined for any sign of these elusive creatures and we soon became ‘expert’ in places that were unsuitable for them.

We were getting a bit downhearted when after 8 days of looking we still hadn’t seen one (with the exception of a dead one on the side of the road - not hit by us I’d like to point out).

We thought our luck might be in at our last stop in Tassie when the walk was called “Platypus trail” and included a hide to help spot them, however it was the wrong time of day and so still no joy. We finally gave up and headed off to find somewhere to camp. Our camp guide suggested a fishing lake. On arrival we did our now customary inspection for the creature, where Chris knowlingly declared “This isn’t suitable platypus habitat” and I keenly observed one serenely floating in the water 5 metres away. Who’s the better naturalist now I wonder?! (This was after I had also pointed out a wombat that was munching grass right in front of him a couple of days previously!).

The platypus seemed reasonably undisturbed by us and continued diving down for food and gave us some lovely views of this fascinating beast. We celebrated our good fortune with a little dance!

November 21, 2007 at 11:46 pm · Written by Chris · Filed under Australia, Animals

Megan and Karen kindly obliged us with a tour of the Australian Antarctic Division buildings. It was a fine display with many gnarly looking machines and equipment. They even lined up a tour of the cutting-edge-of-science krill breeding program with a nice lad called Rob. AAD are the first people to breed Antarctic Krill in captivity. Rob taught us about the sex lives of krill (and I thought I knew more than I really should already).

I couldn’t help but compare the AAD with BAS and can summise my observations thus:

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Hmm. Because they are sessile beasts that remain firmly attached to their substrate? Perhaps not. Maybe just because they are pretty:

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About us

We are slowly making our way around the world in a (mostly) anticlockwise fashion. The intention of this blog is to chronicle our adventures. Starting from Scotland we will make our way to Central America, then on to Australia and New Zealand, before enjoying a restful holiday in South East Asia.